Art and Activism: 50 Years of Africana Studies at KU
The Black Student Union’s actions and activism were met with resistance. The University Press refused to print their newsletter, Harambee. Chancellor Chalmers and the administration refused to honor or explore the group’s demands. Meanwhile, KU’s Black faculty and administrators indicated their support for BSU and their goals.
This issue of Harambee features revolutionary iconography of two male figures; one man breaks the chains of enslavement while another man runs with a gun in one hand and Black Studies books in the other. What books does he hold? AAAS archives indicate that a reading list in circulation included seminal books such as African Kingdoms by Basil Davidson; the Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois and other works such as The Black Flame and Dusk of Dawn; Frederick Douglass: Selections from His Writings; Facing Mount Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta; A Dying Colonialism and Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon; Black Muslims in America by Eric Lincoln; Black Power by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton; Message to the Grass Roots by Malcolm X as well as his Autobiography; Neo-Colonialism: Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah; Mao Tse Tung on Guerilla Warfare and Selected Readings by Mao Tse Tung; and many others.
The Black Student Union’s actions and activism were met with resistance. The University Press refused to print their newsletter, Harambee. Chancellor Chalmers and the administration refused to honor or explore the group’s demands. Meanwhile, KU’s Black faculty and administrators indicated their support for BSU and their goals.
This issue of Harambee features revolutionary iconography of two male figures; one man breaks the chains of enslavement while another man runs with a gun in one hand and Black Studies books in the other. What books does he hold? AAAS archives indicate that a reading list in circulation included seminal books such as African Kingdoms by Basil Davidson; the Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois and other works such as The Black Flame and Dusk of Dawn; Frederick Douglass: Selections from His Writings; Facing Mount Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta; A Dying Colonialism and Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon; Black Muslims in America by Eric Lincoln; Black Power by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton; Message to the Grass Roots by Malcolm X as well as his Autobiography; Neo-Colonialism: Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah; Mao Tse Tung on Guerilla Warfare and Selected Readings by Mao Tse Tung; and many others.
